Winding down. . .

Our time before "The Great Alaskan Adventure" is winding down. On the way home from Virginia, we stopped and spent two nights with our fellow Alaska travelers, Tab and Deanna. We talked about a few of the things that we wanted to finalize, like the satellite phone, etc. We made an adjustment to the trip because Terry is limited to altitudes due to his heart condition, so we made a bit of a change there. Surprisingly, he thought Alaska was going to be a problem with elevations, but it actually is not. It has some tall mountains, but we don't plan to scale them. . . only admire from a distance. He can't do tram rides up the sides of mountains, but he doesn't like those anyway. LOL We got back to the apartments in Goshen and are checking things out here in preparation for our trip. The service truck needs service and we have some things to work on for MinnieMee, our little Alaska rig. She is still in storage. We will leave here on Sunday and head for central Indiana for our routine doctor appointments, then once back here, we unload Phaeton Place, wash her, dump the tanks and get her ready for summer storage. We will bring MinnieMee over and complete the swap of items, then put Phaeton Place into storage. We leave May 22, give or take a day. Tab and Deanna are coming over a few days early in order to see his niece. We have a retirement party in Muncie to attend on May 18 and don't want to miss that, but afterwards will head back up here.

And now to catch you up on our activities for the past two weeks. . . We were in Charlottesville when we learned Terry's cousin Floyd had passed away. Floyd was only 51, but had numerous health issues for the last several years. He had been hospitalized since around Thanksgiving and he was not able to recover from various problems. Terry and I really wanted to come back to Indiana/Michigan in order to pay our respects and meet with the family. When Terry and his parents first moved to Indiana from Mississippi, this part of the family (Terry's dad's brother, etc.) was among the closest family he had and he spent much of his youth gathering with Uncle Bill and his family. We weren't ready to leave our daughter and family in Charlottesville, so we extended our stay there and climbed into the truck at 6:30 on a Friday morning and drove to Goshen, Indiana, arriving about 12 hours later. The next day we spent visiting with the family and attending the services for Floyd. He had been so very sick and while it's always hard to say goodbye, it was the best thing for Floyd. He is now free of pain and illness that had racked his body for so long.

After the funeral, we had dinner with the family at the church and came back to the house. We changed clothes and at 5:45 p.m. we headed back for Charlottesville. We drove to Marysville, Ohio, and stopped for the night. We started out the next morning about 7:45 and drove to Charlottesville, arriving in the afternoon. We did spend some time that evening with the kids, but we were pretty tired, so called it an early evening.

We never get tired of the grandkids. Ronan is growing up. Almost six now and he is very smart and articulate. He has a large vocabulary and listens well. I went to his gymnastics lesson with him, Tom and Aenea, and he listened intently to the "coach" and did exactly what she told him. Aenea enjoyed watching the "big" kids do their routines.

The last night we were there, Ronan and I played Chutes and Ladders and Candyland. After the first couple games of Candyland, he said it was his "turn" to shuffle the cards. It was easy to see that as he had the cards hidden from my view he was stacking the deck. LOL What a hoot. I told Tom and Tom asked him about it. Ronan assured him he was just mixing them up, but when he was finished, he presented me with my "own" deck to pick from while he had his own deck. Hahahaha. That was the quickest game I ever played. He went straight to the top of the board while I hung out at the bottom. It was too funny.

It was cold most of the time we were there, so we hung out inside. After we left, though,

the kids have had some warm days and they like to hike in the mountains. So I am including some pictures they took of their park time and their hiking adventures. Enjoy!

Till next time. . .

Dale

Leaving Melbourne

On our last night in Melbourne, we met at Brandon and Megan's and had dinner on the grill. Really good steaks. We got in some quality time visiting and then presented Megan with our gift for the baby. She had been looking at strollers/carseat combo's and we had figured out what she wanted when we were shopping a couple days before. The color wasn't available locally, so we ordered it using Brandon's "prime" account so we would have 2 day delivery.

After dinner she and Brandon uncovered the box and she was surprised that we managed to get her just what she wanted in such a short time. Truth be told, I don't know that she was that surprised, but I think she was well pleased.

So then the big event for the evening was having two men put together the entire project without the aid of instructions. I think Jax offered them some consultation and the end result was that it fit together perfectly and is a great combination that will afford Baby Pace protection in the car and from the elements when her parents are out walking her. We can't wait to see them all when we return from Alaska!

I almost forgot that they launched some type of satellite/rocket while we were there and even though the kids live about 50 miles away, the rockets are visible from either the front or back yards of the house. When we remembered to look, Brandon checked and the rocket had launched six seconds prior, so I didn't have time to get my camera out to see the rocket itself, which shows up as a glowing cigar shaped object. But I did get the plume it left. After it disappears from view, you can hear the thunder and the roar of the launch.

When we left Melbourne the next morning, and were surprised to be passed by the Batmobile driving north on I-95. You just don't have that happen every day!

We drove into Georgia and stayed a night before going to Richmond, Virginia, for three nights. There we stayed at the Pocahontas State Park and it was beautiful. They have two sections to the campground and the back section is well suited to big rigs. There are some pull through sites and then there are very large sites that are back-ins, but level with large sitting areas, etc. The unfortunate part of our stay there was that the weather forecast changed and we ended up with about four inches of very wet, heavy snow on Sunday night. We had a knock on the door about 8:30 p.m. and it was the park police. They wanted to know if we needed anything (no, we're fine), wanted to know if we needed out to go home (no, we ARE home), and asked us to stay put for the night and in the morning they would plow at 7:30 a.m. They left us a phone number if we had an emergency and said they would bring a tractor in to plow us out. We thought that was very good service.

By morning, the roads were actually clear because the ground was not frozen and I was able to get up on the roof and clean off the heat pumps and the slide toppers which were heavy with wet snow. We were able to leave shortly after noon. It was cold and it snowed and rained on us most of the way to Charlottesville. While I would have preferred being in Charlottesville to begin with and not having to travel in the cold wet weather, it was probably good to get the snow load off the motorhome and the drive took care of that.

We arrived Monday afternoon and went to see the kids after we gotall setup. We took birthday presents for both Aenea and Ronan since her first birthday was a couple weeks ago and his is coming up in a few weeks. We watched them unwrap their gifts and they both liked what we got them. Aenea is doing wonderfully, having started life out as a preemie at 28 weeks. She stands on her own and "cruises" along the couch. She is vocal and a very happy baby. She comes to me even from her Daddy, so that really warms my heart. Ronan is doing well also. He is a very articulate and smart little boy of almost six and very inquisitive about most everything. He and Grandpa Terry put Legos together that first day from his birthday gift. We got him the "Museum Break In" and there were several parts to it. Later that evening his Dad helped him complete the rest of the items in the set. It has been great to see the kids and the grandkids. Unfortuntely Jocelyn and Tom have been sick with colds, but so far they are keeping it to themselves. We've been taking "Airborne" before we stop into their house every day and again once we leave, so hopefully that is helping.

We got some sad news the other day that one of Terry's first cousins, Floyd (51), passed away. He has had a number of health problems for several years and had managed to work through most of them, but they have taken a toll on his body. He recently developed some infections and was not able to recover from them. RIP Floyd. You will be missed.

Till next time. . .

Dale